Recently, Media canals who had a big good reputation for halos of golden neutrality shining over them suddenly went berserk on a personal binge against Rahul Gandhi, who is the four times Member of Parliament, former Congress President and Vice President. Considering that he was not the Prime Minister, nor the President of the Indian National Congress, the sudden sharpened dagger-edged attacks on him were surprising. This too at a time when India is reeling under COVID deaths rising, where India seconds the world in the number of cases and deaths in the woldometer charts; with doctors struggling, understaffed, dying, and India’s sharp economic drop more than other major economies, which set in before pandemic, millions terrifyingly unemployed and scared, depression, recession, rising suicides, rapes, murders, petrol and diesel prices frighteningly increasing, etc. In this entire crazy panorama, to focus on Rahul Gandhi and not even the Prime Minister looks very strange, indeed.
Psychologically, when someone is threatened by another, they want to create a false perception to ruin the image of the object of their insecurity. It became apparent that the ruling party wanted to create a cartoon image of the Opposition party’s President Rahul Gandhi. They ridiculed him relentlessly on Social Media, spread tales that he was a cocaine addict, mocked his intelligence and soon the nation was uproariously rocking with laughter whenever his name was mentioned, (at least a large part until recently).
Mindless mobs may ridicule Rahul Gandhi calling him Pappu because the mob culture moves by mass hypnotism deprived of higher thinking faculties, they swallow everything they see without thinking. While people say he was just planted in politics by Congress by the ladder rung of nepotism because he was a Gandhi, the opposite is true. He was not looking for it, it came to him. At one time, the former Prime Minister Dr. Manmohan Singh offered Rahul Gandhi the Prime Minister’s chair when Dr. Manmohan Singh was the Prime Minister, and Rahul Gandhi refused it, such was his integrity. Anyone else would have grabbed it. In any profession, it is very common that the children of actors, politicians etc., follow the same line as their parents, so do we call it nepotism then? These children have to be able to perform reasonably well to get into the same fields anyway. Watching their parents over years, they learn the ropes and it is easy for them to slip into those positions. Do we just keep chanting nepotism for all of these? For the reluctant Rahul Gandhi, it was Destiny calling him to the political arena and one cannot fight Destiny, it draws you in with a magnetic force that you cannot resist.
Rahul Gandhi was looked upon as the rich man’s spoiled brat who had it all. People accused him of faking his outreach to the poor for surely, how could a guy who was born in the lap of luxury understand poverty? They placed him as a brand of the Lutyens who did not have a place with commonplace Indians. With a batch of rejection stamped on Rahul Gandhi making him a clown where masses were rolling with laughter whenever his name was mentioned, the wheels in BJP kept rolling the way they wanted that image to go.
Saying all this, now why would we need him as Prime Minister?
In a bruised torn nation, we need a brave, compassionate leader who will never break his promises to betray the people: India today is torn, bleeding and hearts betrayed. We need a leader who will not be bought or compromised. We need a valiant leader who in great strides of courage will tread on dangerous waters for the sake of the nation to build it up. Rahul Gandhi has no fear for his life; he is one of the most courageous modern day politicians. He was one of the first few leaders to reach out to Kashmir during the very harsh long lockdown with the revocation of Article 370 though of course he was muffled and restricted at the airport.
Do an online poll or an on ground poll and discover that Rahul Gandhi is the favorite choice of millions of Congress party workers. See a tweet by Rahul Gandhi and one by PM Modi, and within minutes, Rahul Gandhi’s tweets would get more likes and retweets even though BJP has a paid, thriving IT cell and Congress does not, none of the Congress volunteers are paid, all do it for the love of the party and the nation. The likes for Rahul Gandhi are from real Indians and not an IT cell from Turkey, Pakistan or China as the BJP would like you to believe. These people have real IDs, unlike the BJP IT cell, where most of those IDs are nameless, faceless and fake. This incredible adoration for him is all the fruit of his outreach and labor over the last two decades.
What most people in India do not realize is that the Youth Congress Party was like a dying flame and drying directionless meandering stream before the 2000s. In 2004, Rahul Gandhi stepped in. He was first elected to Lok Sabha in 2004. He could have taken any high position of greater magnitude and honor in the Congress party, but he chose a challenging one, working with the Youth Congress. He revived the Youth Congress with blazing passion until it became a powerful roaring river. He revamped Youth Congress and NSUI organization. He introduced election process for the first time in the Youth Congress and NSUI which allowed the entry for the gifted and capable with true credentials, not just the rich and powerful. Under his dynamic leadership, Youth Congress saw a jump of 25 lakh primary members which has increased and expanded over the years. He walked with party workers on dusty roads, sat with them, interacted with them, and won their hearts through his personal outreach.
He is the Napoleon Bonaparte type of leader who walks with his people and does not order them from a throne or a phone, and this is why they love him.
He is no man’s keeper, not hungry for power, position or money. In truth, he is not even a politician but he is a pure revolutionist in the heart of Gandhiji, who walks cobbled streets or muddy fields with his people, and drinks tea and eats samosas in humble restaurants with them.
During the COVID-19 crisis, it was the Congress Youth under the leadership of Rahul Gandhi that has reached out tirelessly to struggling citizens and they are there in every crisis under his guidance and leadership.
In States where the Congress party ruled, they waived all the farmers’ loans and kept their electoral promises to them, under the leadership of Rahul Gandhi. Credit does go to the honorable Congress Chief Ministers such as Captain Amarinder Singh and other great leaders for keeping their word and ruling their States so effectively. However, it was known that Rahul Gandhi did gently remind some other leaders to follow up on their promises of loan waivers to the farmers.
Rahulji could sit along with the poor at the same table and chat with them freely. He could hug a poor old woman as wrinkled as a raisin with pure love shining out of his eyes. He sought duty cuts on items for blind students, among other dozens of acts of empathy. He could jump boundary fences to join a band of grubby farmers as he extended out open arms to them. He could sit on a grubby footpaths with the distressed migrant workers during the COVID crisis, give them assistance and firmly keep his promises to all the people he met. During winter, wearing his famous black Burberry quilted jacket during his street outreaches, he meets different people with personalized compassion.
Some of the spectacular acts he did were his secret outreach to Nirbhaya’s family where he specifically instructed them not to tell anyone not desiring publicity. He was a personal benefactor to her brother helping him in his dream to become a pilot. While the family was sworn to secretary, they could not bear to keep silent in the wake of the ridicule that Rahul Gandhi was facing and had to blurt it out.
Another act of valiance was when Rahul Gandhi narrowly escaped a plane crash during Karnataka polls in August 2018 when his aircraft, en route Hubbali, developed a snag mid-air. During that frightening event when the plane nearly crashed, Rahuji kept calm and comforted the crew. The grateful crew later shared this after the incident. In the face of death, he had no fear for his own life. A true leader always walks along with the people. There are some things in life one cannot fake, especially in hit and run cases and near death situations and Rahulji proved it. He genuinely cared.
On one occasion, a photographer suddenly fell down a flight of stairs while covering Rahul Gandhi’s arrival at Biju Patnaik International Airport in Bhubaneswar. Rahul Gandhi was the first person to rush down the stairs to help the photographer up.
He fought for farmers and workers from Bhatta Parsaul to Barmer and Orissa and got the new pro farmers land acquisition Act, 2012 passed by the Government of India. He has done a remarkable outreach during the COVID-19 crisis to his constituency in Kerala, Wayanad. He has also reached out to his former constituency Amethi with aid.
His heart readily catches the plight of the poor. Kindness is a natural inborn trait in him, so he is very easily drawn to the penurious masses. Fascinated with their simple lives, so different from his own, he loves to sit and talk to them. He joined the demonetization line to talk to the masses standing in that line and get a peek into their thoughts in that situation; he sat in a movie hall just to identify with citizens who watch movies and get a glimpse into their daily lives. He is the man that insists that the poor farmers and others get their money transferred directly into their bank accounts to put money into the system without it getting trapped by other grabbing agencies. Somehow over these last years, with all the schemes, the poor and middle section never saw the money that was promised because it got lost in the “system.”
India needs a leader of integrity who will not be compromised or encourage vote bank stealing: The man born with a silver spoon in his mouth who had sailed through galaxies of glamour and glaze saw it all and there was nothing new to entrance him. He cannot be bought or compromised. Once he is in the full flow of politics, he will ensure that none of his politicians are bought or join hands with the enemies and cheat on the citizens’ trust. Until now, Rahul Gandhi has not been given full reign to politics due to a conflict between the old and young guards, but once that is given, there will be a mighty forceful flow in the Congress, and young leaders will be unleashed with power and capabilities to build the nation. Of course, the wisdom of the old is always needed, both forces are equal, but have to be balanced, yet the younger force has to now lead the way for the new era to come.
In pre and post 2014, during the dark spell of the Congress when it lost elections, he tried to build the party with the support of loyal party workers and faithful citizens of India. He got very little support from all the guards, young or old during that time.
The Congress party won 3 States in 2018 and Rahul Gandhi gave all the credit to the local leaders and party workers but when the party performed badly in 2019, he took the responsibility and resigned from the Presidentship. He did all silently and tirelessly and never asked for power, recognition, post or respect. All along, Media, the ruling party mocked and ridiculed him; and it was noted many of his own party members did nothing to protect him or speak up for him. We never saw him file an FIR for defamation of character for some of the things said against him are shockingly derogatory. We never saw him use those derogatory statements in election campaigns to play the victim card unlike some politicians who did.
India needs a leader who is willing to work in a team with others: Rahul Gandhi is an avid studier of all subjects; he gleans and learns as a scholar in the school of life. He interacts with economists, agriculturists, politicians, and people from all walks of life, as a student and a contributor. He is insightful, prophetic as many of the statements he made came out startlingly true, such as his predictions for demonetization which he foresaw as the biggest money grabbing scam; incidentally no one got the 15 lakhs promised to them. He frequently warned the government of the magnitude of the COVID-19 pandemic in February, when no other politician paid heed to his warnings, the endemic of joblessness in India, and the list goes on.
He has organizational skills: One might laugh at this, but the truth is when he took up Youth Congress, he organized it and revived it into the mighty force it is today. If anyone can fire up the nation again, it is the Youth Congress and credit goes to Rahul Gandhi for building it up to this level.
He understands the demography of India: India is not like USA, which can survive as a capitalist country. Does PM Modi realize that the poor will be wiped out completely in a capitalist society in India? In USA, the middle and poor class have medical insurance, disability benefits, and the State takes care of them when they are jobless, unlike India, where millions will die like flies. While people in USA are taxed and pay it up, they also are well taken care of. While PM Modi might want to copy USA’s model of capitalism, Rahul Gandhi can see its suicidal and homicidal implications for the middle and poor class. Rahul Gandhi has understood the poor person’s need for autonomy of their businesses, the farmer’s right to price their products and get good money for their toil and sweat.
He has a vision to empower the middle class and is already working on lines on how to do it and passionately wants to create jobs for the youth and concretely thinking on how to generate new jobs for the over one billion citizens in India and he working with the think tanks of the nation for this. He is keen to implement schemes and ensure the fruit of it benefits all the people.
Gifted Leader: He is a black belt in Aikido, a licensed pilot, and can dive 75 meters under the sea in a single breath and much more. Some of these points here are just of a talented man. Now, while these are not credentials for being a prime minister, it does reveal the potential of a person, for it requires deep discipline and dedication to develop such skills besides the talent and intelligence along with a compassionate heart.
He Has to Pick It Up
He is a unique leader, a man of his own right and caliber, he thinks strongly and deeply, does not follow the masses and keeps his promises. There is something different about him, and he will never let you down. Mind you, Rahul Gandhi is more of a revolutionary leader than he is a politician, but it takes a revolutionary leader with a kind heart to be one of the greatest rare leaders there could be. This is the kind of leader our nation needs when it is crippled with hatred. If Rahul Gandhi is Prime Minister, because of his kindness and compassion, positive waves will be released in the nation. Positive vibes always prospers a nation and flourishes the economy; negative vibes of hate destroy a nation and its economy.
While he resigned as the President of the Congress party, millions of party workers are not letting him go. He is their choice. On the voting polls both online and on ground, as a Congress Leader, he has already won. He needs to accept Presidentship again and move forward, for we need him at this dark hour in India when the light of democracy is fading into the night of fascism.
